Rumored by foreigners in the French Concession,sixty-seven thousand stillborns dissolvein the Yangtze River per year, sediments lacedwith babies who find their rest in this citycarved by foreigners carving men

that interrupt the opium concert.The watermelon seller drags his netfilled with red-hearted melons throughthis death-polluted river to give themextra weight to be sold by the poundin Shanghai. These blood-soakedwatermelons are the best damnwatermelons in the world.

II.

At night, the women place spiders on the facesof rented babies, and I sneak out

of the French Concession to the partwhere the Chinese live. The white men said not

to, but I found the Chinesetreated me better. The white men tell me I’m

no longer black here, that I’m an American,and better yet, a citizen of the world. They say

I’m free. But I still can’t find a damnhotel that’ll let me stay and restaurants

make me use the back door.The white men again have drawn

the color line against peopleeven in their own country.

III.

In a smoky jazz club, I meet the black entertainers

that can be found nearly anywhere in the world,

dancing like there’s freedom

on the stage.

The two dancers doing the paso doble are cussing eachother out the whole time, and I feel like I’m back in Harlem.

On the day before I leave, they make me a meal of southernfried chicken, biscuits and gravy. As I sit in a rickshaw

on the Bund, I see another black man. I yell Hey manand he yells What ya saying and I never see him again.

Kassy Lee’s most recent chapbook, Period of Warring States, was published in 2017 by Another New Calligraphy Press. Her first chapbook, zombia, was published in 2014 by dancing girl press. Her work has been featured in Spittoon Literary Magazine, Quarto, The Columbia Review, and Perigee. She has read in the Bookworm Beijing International Literary Festival. She lives in Beijing.